The diamond drill. (Crystal Falls, Iron County, Mich.) 1887-1996, 1887-08-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.



TEXT: Or ministry. let us wait on our
ministering; or he that teacheth on teach
ing; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation.
Romans, Ill, 2, 8.
Before the world is converted the
style Of religious discourse will have
to be converted. You might as well
90 into the modern Sedan or Gettys-
burg with bows and arrows instead
of rifles and bombshells and parks OF
artillery, as to expect TO conquer this
world for God by the old styles of ex-
hortation and sermonology. Jonathan
Edwards preached the sermons most
adapted to the age in which he lived.
but IL those sermons were preached
now they would divide the audience
into two classes, those sound asleep
and those wanting TO go home. +
" But there Is q religious discourse Of
the future who viii preach it have
no idea; in what part of the earth il
will be born l have no idea; In which
denominations of Christians IL will be
delivered can not guess. That dis
course or exhortation may be born In
the country meeting house on the banks
Of the St. Lawrence. or the Oregon. or
the Ohio, or the Tombigbee, or the Ala
bama. The person who shall deliver
IT may at this moment be In cradle
under the shadow of the Sierra Neya-
das, or in New England farm house,
or amid the rice fields of Southern sa-
yannas. Or this moment there may
be some young man in some OF our
theological seminaries, in the Junior or
middle or senior class, shaping that
weapon of power. Or there may be
coming some new baptism OF the Holy
Ghost on the Churches, so that some
OF us who now stand in the watch
towers of Zion, waking TO a realization of
our present inefliciency, may preach il
ourselves. That coming discourse may
not be fifty years off. And let us pray
God that its arrival may be fastened,
while announce what think will be
the chief characteristics of that dis
course or exhortation when IL does ar
rive, and want 10 make the remarks
of the morning appropriate and sug-
gestive 10 all classes of Christian work
ers. #t .rAtt
First of all, remark that the future
religious discourse will be full Of a
living Christ i'm contradistinction TO
didactic technicalities. A discourse
may be full of Christ though hardly
mentioning his name. and sermon
may be empty Of Christ while every
sentence is repetitions OF his titles.
The world wants living Christ, not a
Christ standing at the head of form
al system of theology, but Christ who
means pardon and sympathy and con-
dolence, and brotherhood and life and
heaven.
That sermon or exhortation OF the
future will not deal with men in the
threadbare illustrations of Jesus
Christ. In that coming address there
will be instances of vicarious suffering
taken right out of every day life, for
there is not a day somebody is not
dying for others. AS the physician
saving his diphtheritic patient by
sacrificing his own life; as the ship
captain going down with his vessel
while he is getting his passengers into
the life boat; as the fireman con-
Stunning in the burning building while
he is taking a child out of fourth
story window; as in summer the
strong swimmer of East Hampton OF
Long Branch, or Cape May, or Lake
George, himself persisted in trying Ia
rescue the drowning; as the news.
paper boy one summer, supporting his
mother for some years, his invalid
mother, when offered by gentleman
fifty cents to get some especial paper
and he got IL. and rushed up in his
anxiety TO deliver IL, and was crushed
under the wheels of the train, and lay
on the grass with only strength
enough TO say: ooh. what will become
OF my poor sick mother now.'
Vicarious suffering. The world i:
Full of IL. An engineer said TO me or
a locomotive in Dakota:
1--WE men seem 10 be coming to q
better appreciation than we used to
Did you see that account the Other
day Of an engineer who, TO save hi:
passengers. stuck TO his place, and
when he was found dead in the loco
motive, which was upside down, n,
was found still smiling, his hand OF
the air brakeg"
And as the engineer said II TO me
he put his hand on the air brake TO H.
lustrate his meaning, and | looked al
him and thought 400 ER
mYou would be just as much Of Z
hero in the same crisis"
fYh fa that ralfoione diacourca ~ IN.